


Dead

by Marionette_Ame



Series: MerMay 2020 [6]
Category: Noblesse (Manhwa)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, MerMay, MerMay 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24470614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marionette_Ame/pseuds/Marionette_Ame
Summary: Why fight the Noblesse when you can sleep in the sea for so long that everyone thinks you're dead?
Series: MerMay 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739509
Kudos: 5





	Dead

There’s something beautiful about the depths. Most can’t see perhaps, but that’s all. There’s still the water around them that pushes them this way and that ( _and makes them feel as if they’re turning to ice. turning to die_ ). There’s the way that the plants of the sea brush against their legs and feet ( _and wraps around them to drag them under. to trap them so they struggle and scream and feel their lungs fill up with pain and pain and pain_ ). There’s salt on their tongue ( _but it’s better not to swallow because there’s grit too_ ) and the soothing murmur of the water ( _which hides away all the killing and that they’ve become prey_ ).

Of course it’s completely different for Ignes.

She’s a Kravei, born of sea foam and ravines. Is the sea not her home? Calling to her as she calls to all Kravei. A mother, a lover, a child to be treasured... Ignes adores all that is the sea and it adores her too. There is no other whose love for her is eternal, no other who will love her regardless of her sins. Even her father cannot compare for he troubles over her work while the sea merely beckons her near.

Often she swims, but when she goes deeper she lets her body fade to jagged scales and jagged fins and teeth upon teeth upon teeth. It’s not the form of the Kravei. Of course not. That is much more ancient and if she becomes it she may never return for the call would be stronger and her time would be wiled away until she was stuck as such forever. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if not for all that she wants on land, after all, it is the blessings of the old that let even a body as fragile as her traverse to the greatest of depths. It is that which has her feeling pleasant where others would freeze or burn and that which makes her eyes dimly glow for ease of hunt. So much more too, but now she settles for a tail and scales and fins.

Long ago her father would come with but he stopped as she grew. This time though, he comes with. Not as he once did but as a gentle pulsing of the weapon within her soul. It's not only him that accompanies her; her ancestors are here too. Lantheart encourages her and sings with the sea. He loves it more than she, more than any Kravei alone, of course he does. Countless together make him up and they comfort her, changing all her grief to cold revenge.

They sing stories of the Kravei who sleep in the sea and whisper of how they would like to join them. Years have turned to decades to centuries to millennia, for them and still they stay, long forgotten. Long forgotten. Long forgotten. It’s a tempting song and so she listens. So she follows.

Ignes knows that a few millennia aren’t enough. There is an ancestor in the depths like her who is still remembered. Still missed. So she must stay longer than him, much much longer. It’s not a hard task because she can hunt and play and because she’s been bringing all she needs underwater for a long long time. Her father had disapproved but in the end she was right. Of course she was. So she spends her time preying upon hapless humans who were too loud and fish and other strange creatures under the sea. She plays and frolics and spends the rest of several millennia curled up in her lab, waiting.

* * *

Raskreia smiles, mussing up her daughter’s hair with both her hands. It’s an affectionate gesture, much more affectionate than she used to be and she turns her hands to her son next. He pouts and complains as she messes with his hair unlike her daughter who merely smiled, but warmth wraps around her gently so she knows he likes it. When she’s done he fixes it up quickly and she laughs at her daughter who’s still standing relaxed with her hair up in every direction.

It’s a nice time, and she sighs when her husband comes to tell her that her presence is requested but goes anyway. Her curiosity is piqued upon the pair kneeling before the throne. A Kravei man of Drosian looks and a Drosian woman of Kravei looks. It makes sense when she learns that they are twins, and it makes even more sense when she learns of their parentage.

The woman she accepts as her Drosia clan leader and she receives a bow at that. Someone who’ll enjoy Karias' company then. The man she accepts too but he frowns and shakes his head, telling her that she’s misunderstood him. When she asks for clarification he says he doesn’t have Lantheart and she can’t keep her heart beating or even breathing with the shock so she stops.

The child of Edian Drosia and Roctis Kravei is before her. He is Kravei, he is of age, he is the next in line, and so he is meant to have Lantheart. Yet he doesn’t.

That can only mean a single thing.

With her heart still and her breath still gone, she smiles, joy fluttering in her words- “Ignes Kravei... I’ve always wanted you as my clan leader.”

* * *

In her lab, in the depths of the sea where only monsters lurk, Ignes stirs from her sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Ignes' mermaid form is based off of the pyjama shark (Poroderma africanum) because she's definitely a shark and this one is cute. She has younger twin siblings and doesn't think they'll report her which they don't. They just clear up her image and make people like her so when the boi's existence implies that she's still alive they want her back without wanting to send her into eternal sleep.


End file.
